TITLE: Season 2, Episode 1(Ep. 12 Overall)-Grudges and Explanations
SERIES: Faith, Rogue Slayer
AUTHOR: elizafan568
EMAIL: elizfaith568@yahoo.com
FEEDBACK: Yes, please.
ARCHIVE/DISTRIBUTION: This site. If you want to post on your site, just ask.
SUMMARY: Connor confronts Faith about her confession; A mysterious woman seeks vengeance on Faith.
SPOILERS: Buffy season 7 and Angel season 5
CONTENT/WARNINGS: Violence
RATING: R
DISCLAIMER: All character are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc. I do not own them. Written for fun not profit.
NOTE: Set post-"Not Fade Away".
Season 2, Episode 1: Grudges and Explanations
Two months have passed since the defeat of Zen. After recovering from their injuries, Connor and Faith have continued their relationship, but Faith has continually avoided the subject of professing her love to Connor that night, leaving Connor wondering if se really meant it or not.
Lorne has been seeing clients on a regular basis while Faith has taken a job bartending to help bring in some money. Faith has convinced a very withdrawn Willow to stay in LA in hopes that she can help her in dealing with the loss of Kennedy and the issues it brought into being. Andrew, meanwhile, has been steadily increasing his own network of contacts, now rivaling Lorne's in size, as well as building a library of books on demons, magic, the occult, and other things that could prove useful in the future. It's still a bit of a mystery to the group as to how Andrew has been able to get in good with so many demons and shady characters, but they thought it better not to ask.
*********************
It was another busy night at the Top View Bar. Faith had just finished throwing out her fifth drunk of the night and shooting down her twelfth admirer when Gwen walked up to the bar, catching Faith completely by surprise. "Faith, enough is enough. You have to talk to him." she said, looking Faith square in the eye.
"What are you talking about?" Faith asked, looking away as she started wiping the bar, trying to avoid the subject entirely.
Gwen slammed her hand down onto the bar, startling a few nearby patrons as her aggravation towards Faith grew. "Oh, you know damn well what I'm talking about Faith! Connor. You told him you loved him. That's not just something you say to someone and then never address it again. He's been brooding over your avoidance of the issue since you two got out of the hospital. He needs to know you meant it." If it was one thing Gwen couldn't stand, it was people avoiding the obvious, especially when it came to matters of the heart.
Faith stopped wiping and just looked straight down at the bar. "Gwen…That's just it. I'm not sure if I meant it or not. It just felt like the right thing to say and the right time to say it. Everything in me was telling me that it was right but, I don't know. In the heat of the moment, how can I be sure. Especially when I'm not even sure what real love is." Faith exclaimed as she put her head in her hands atop the bar, unsure of how to deal with this.
"Well, whether you meant it or not is up to you. I think you to are great together. It's obvious he's crazy about you and that he'd do anything for you and I think you feel the same about him, but it's not my life. Either way, you have to figure it out and tell him. No sense in putting yourselves through this if you don't think it's there." Gwen said as she got up from the bar and started to walk away.
"Gwen!" Faith called out, causing Gwen to look back.
"Yeah?" Gwen asked sarcastically.
"Thanks for trying to knock some sense into me." Faith replied, giving Gwen a slight smile.
"Don't know what you guys would do without me." Gwen said as she turned and walked out of the bar.
Faith stood there a second, thinking about what Gwen said and about how she really felt. *Is it really that easy to just love someone? Can I even do it right? With everything we've been through, I think I can…but…*
"Hey!" a customer yelled, snapping Faith out of her lament. "Can I get some service over here or what?"
"Yeah, yeah. Keep your pants on. I'm coming." Faith snapped back. Faith would do it. She'd talk to Connor tonight. She had to. They both needed it if their relationship was ever going to move forward. Faith needed it to prove to herself that love was something she could both give and receive. She just hoped she had it figured out.
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A shadowy figure sat in a vacant building across from the Hyperion hotel, watching it through a broken window with an unwavering , icy gaze. She had been there for the past three weeks, watching and waiting for just the right moment to strike. Armed with an array of weapons for any and all situations, she knew the time would be soon, very soon.
As she walked away from the window, the first time in hours, she ran through her ideas once more for how sweet her revenge would be. *Don't worry, Faith. Your time is at hand, so you won't have to worry with living with the guilt much longer, not that you would ever really feel guilty for anything you've done.*
Opening a cabinet on the wall, the young woman pulled a crossbow out and checked it out. Armed and dangerous, just the way she liked it. She spun around and pointed it in the direction of the Hyperion. "Tonight, Faith, your life is mine."
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Willow sat alone in her room, just like she had every night since deciding to stay in LA. She still was unsure as to why she had made that choice, although it didn't matter where she was. She wasn't much use to anyone anymore. Still, she felt some sort of weird connection to Faith since she had lost herself in darkness like she had. As bad as she felt, she did have to admit that she felt more comfortable here than she had anywhere else since Kennedy's death.
A knock at the door snapped Willow of her daze. "Willow, honey, it's Lorne. Can I come in?" a voice said from the outside of the door.
"Sure." Willow muttered out, barely audible.
Lorne walked into the room, carrying a tray with a plate of food and a glass of water on it. "Thought you might be hungry, you haven't eaten anything all day." he said, setting it down on the desk next to the bed where Willow sat.
"Thanks, Lorne. I'll eat it in a bit. Just have a few things I want to do before that." she said, not really looking at him.
"Listen honey, I know your going through a lot right now and I wanna help you anyway I can. You just need to know that…what happened to Kennedy isn't your fault. She was a Slayer doing her job and gave her life fighting for good. There's nothing more you could have done." Lorne said as he put his hand on Willow's shoulder, doing his best to comfort the despondent witch.
Willow put her hand on his and looked up at him. "Yes it was. Kennedy died because she was close to me. Anyone that gets close to me suffers a horrible death. First Tara, then Kennedy. Oz was lucky he got away when he did or the same would have happened to him too." Willow said, tears welling up in her eyes.
Lorne opened his mouth to say more, perhaps to argue the point, but he knew it was no use. There was nothing he could say or do that was going to make her feel any less guilty. The only one of them that had a chance of reaching her was Faith, and even then, it was going to take awhile. "Well, you take care peaches. If you need anything, just give me a holler." Lorne said as he turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Willow simply turned to stare at the food, watching the steam rise off of it as it began to cool. She was hungry and she would eat it. She just wasn't sure when.
******************
Faith had gotten off work a bit early, wanting to get this thing with Connor over with as soon as possible. She had never been so nervous about simply talking to someone in her life. *This has gotta be love, what else could it be.* Faith thought to herself as she got of her motorcycle at the back of the hotel. As she entered the garden in the back, she stopped dead in her step when she saw Connor sitting on the bench waiting for her. "We need to talk."
Faith took a deep breath and dropped her bag on the ground, resolved to do and say what need to be done and said. "Yeah, I know we do." Faith walked over and sat down on the bench next to Connor. They sat facing each other. Both hesitant to start for fear of what might actually come out.
Connor finally broke the silence with a simple question, getting right to the point. "Did you mean it?"
Faith was slightly taken aback by Connor's bluntness. She had expected him to be the more forceful in the conversation, but not like this. "What?"
Connor looked her straight in the eye, showing her everything he had to offer. "In Zen's cavern, you said you loved me. Did you mean it? You know I love you, Faith, but I need to know. Did you mean it? Do you love me?"
Faith opened her mouth to answer when she caught a sharp movement out of the corner of her eye in the direction of the gate leading out to the street.
"Die!" a female voice yelled as Faith snapped her head in time to see a figure atop the gate let fly with a crossbow right at Connor. Faith leapt forward, knocking Connor and herself out of the way and onto the ground. The arrow hit the bench squarely where Connor had been sitting.
"What the hell was that?" Connor exclaimed as he tried to get to his feet and was pushed back down by Faith.
"Stay down!" she commanded as she looked back up at the gate to see a figure jump down into the light. It was a young woman, no more than nineteen years old, with long dark hair. She wore black jeans with a black vest, covered by an equally black jacket. She had dark eye and lip makeup on as well as several deep scars on her face.
"Well, you're a bit faster than I thought you'd be. I should expect no less from the psychotic slayer that ruined my life." The woman said as she loaded another arrow into her crossbow.
Faith took her opportunity and jumped up, charging the woman and kicking the crossbow from her hands. She took stance as the woman stepped back, pulling twin daggers from under her jacket, almost matching Faith's stance. "Nicely done, whore." The woman said as she attacked Faith.
Faith dodged the woman's attacks, but only barely. *She's good…really good. She's at least as strong as me and even faster than B is.* she thought as she continued blocking and dodging the daggers as she was backed up to the wall.
"Now your mine." the woman exclaimed, stabbing at Faith with both daggers. Faith flipped over the woman, dodging the daggers, and landing behind her. Faith kicked her in the back, causing her to stumble forward. Taking the woman's lost balance as an opportunity, Faith grabbed her and slammed her against the wall, pinning her against it and forcing her to drop the daggers. "Who the hell are you?" Faith demanded thorough gritted teeth into the woman's ear.
Seemingly ignoring Faith's question, the woman pushed off the wall, back into Faith, loosening her grip. She then ran toward the wall, running up it and flipping over, landing behind Faith and kicking her in the back of the knee, forcing her down. She aimed a kick at Faith's head that was blocked but quickly followed up with another from the opposite direction, nailing Faith in the face and drawing blood from her nose.
Faith rolled away and got to her feet, wiping the blood from her face. The woman smiled a icy cold smile which quickly turned when Lorne and Andrew came running outside and Connor rushed over to Faith's side.
"You! How can you have people that care about you. You'd don't deserve suck luxuries. You deserve only a grizzly death at my hands, you murdering bitch." The woman spat at Faith, rage and hate filling her voice.
"Who are you?" Faith asked again, completely lost as to the identity of this girl.
"Name was Stacey Worth,. Hope the name rings a bell so you remember what murder lead to your own. You can call me Scorn, cause that's what I am to you. The scorn of your existence. I will make your life a living hell, fitting of a murderer such as yourself. I will destroy everything that you care about. Then, when you have nothing left, I will take your life. This I swear on my uncle's soul." the woman exclaimed.
The reality of who she was and what she was after hitting Faith like a ton of bricks.
The woman spat at Faith and then turned away, running out of the garden and out of sight. Connor started after her but Faith held him back. "Stop, let her go for now."
"Who was the girl, Faith? And what's all this about?" Lorne asked, completely lost at what had just transpired.
Faith simply stared at where the woman had been standing and replied, "That wasn't just some girl. She was a Slayer."
End of Episode.
